


Epilogue

by QueenForADay



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Corvo Bianco (The Witcher), Domestic Fluff, Established Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Growing Old Together, Half-Elf Jaskier | Dandelion, Implied Sexual Content, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Married Couple, Or As Old As A Witcher and Half-Elf Can Get, Sex, Smut, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Soft Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:13:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenForADay/pseuds/QueenForADay
Summary: “What are you doing out here?”Jaskier is quiet for a moment, looking out on to the valley. “I needed to think,” he says quietly.Geralt looks down at him. A light laugh bubbles out of Jaskier. “Don’t look so afraid,” he pets Geralt’s hand, “you didn’t do anything. I’ve just...I’ve been having dreams lately.”“What sorts of dreams?”“Odd ones.” Jaskier sighs, fidgeting with Geralt’s fingers until he can interlace them. “They’re like memories, but...they aren’t mine. I’m never me in my dreams.”--A snippet of Geralt & Jaskier's life at Corvo Bianco.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 34
Kudos: 478





	Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> Did I just drink a whole litre of chamomile and spiced apple tea because it tasted nice, get put into a quasi-coma, and wake up with this idea in my brain at 1a.m?
> 
> The answer may shock you.

It isn’t a common occurrence for Geralt to wake alone.

Usually, he blinks awake when the sun starts to peer over the Sansretour Valley, with a bard plastered to his back, nose buried into his nape and limbs wrapped around him. Geralt spends more time trying to untangle himself out of his lover’s hold than anything else. Getting dressed and grabbing breakfast is easy. Trying to get out of Jaskier’s hold without waking him is another matter entirely.

Even though he isn’t fully awake, he can already sense that something is different. When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is the empty expanse of the other side of their bed that would usually have a bard curled up on it. Geralt reaches out. His frown only deepens when his hand glides over cool sheets. The bard’s usual scent is thinning, but it’s still there; faint wisps of the lavender oil he uses to help him sleep, the oat milk he likes to bathe in once every week. Geralt pulls Jaskier’s pillow over to him. The scent is weak, but still there. He mustn’t have gone far.

Their house is relatively small. The estate itself sprawls out, seemingly reaching out towards the horizon with the amount of land under the estate’s ownership. It’s only him and Jaskier living here; neither of them requiring much room. Jaskier has his office upstairs and Geralt does most of his work out in the fields. They’ve filled the house with things collected over the years; armour sets and polished weapons, books and paintings and instruments mounted on the walls.

Geralt sighs. Without the bard, a chill is starting to nip at his skin. He won’t be able to settle soon. Jaskier tempers him. If the bard is against him or in his arms, then he knows where he is and that he’s safe. Geralt grunts, slipping out of bed. He pulls on some clothes; a loose black shirt, breeches, and his boots. He ties his hair back into something manageable.

Their hearth struggles to keep a fire going. All that’s left of it is embers choking under ash.

Freshly baked bread and cooked seasoned meat slip out through the cracked door. Geralt softly raps his knuckles against the door. Marlene is already awake and crowded over a pot, adding chopped mushrooms and lentils to a stew. The woman jumps slightly at the sound, but she relaxes when she sees him. “Oh, Master Geralt,” she dusts her hands on her apron. “You’re up early. I’m sorry but breakfast won’t be ready for another hour-”

Geralt lifts a hand. “I’m alright for now, Marlene. Thank you.” He offers her a small smile. “Has Jaskier been through?”

The woman straightens, setting her hands into the small of her back and stretching out. “Yes! He came in to take a few apples. Said something about heading down to the stables.”

After all that Roach has done for him, he can let the treats slide. Geralt nods. “Thank you.”

The early morning air is crisp and nips his skin as soon as he steps outside. He doesn’t feel the cold as normal men might, but he does fold his arms over his chest as he starts down towards the stables. The estate is quiet, with every worker’s house still dark and their shutters closed.

The sun is starting to climb over the Sansretour Valley’s peaks, casting the sky into shades of lilac and orange. A few stars still stay dotted around, not wanting to be chased away by the sun. When he’s a few paces away from the stable, a familiar chestnut head sticks out and nickers lowly. Geralt smiles. “Good morning,” he gentles, catching her muzzle in his hands.

She lets him pet her felt nose, and even sniffs his hands for treats. Geralt cranes his neck into the stall. Nothing. He leaves Roach with one last scratch behind her ears.

Barnabas-Basil is nearby on one of his walks – or _patrols_ , as Jaskier calls them.

The man strolls around the dirt paths of the estate as if they were the cobbled streets of Novigrad. Barnabas is always on his rounds, from when Geralt and Jaskier retire for bed at night to when the first of them wakes – the majordomo is always scurrying around doing jobs. Geralt’s fairly sure that the man doesn’t actually sleep.

When Barnabas-Basil spots Geralt, he straightens as he’s prone to doing – back ram-rod straight and hands dutifully clasped behind him. “Master Geralt,” he says. “You’re up early. The field-workers haven’t even risen yet.”

Geralt hums. Time sent away from being constantly on guard have dulled his senses. It takes him time to wake up now, not just his mind but his body. “Have you seen Jaskier?” he asks. A chill wind that blows over the estate shakes the last cobwebs out of him.

“The Master Jaskier?” Barnabas-Basil adjusts his dark glasses. “Yes. I saw him heading up towards the overlook about half an hour ago.”

He finds Jaskier easily enough. The man is curled up on a chaise lounge on one of the estate’s overlooks, staring out on to the valley that stretches out into the horizon. He remembers dragging the seat up there for the summer months, when the sun would rise early and perch itself in the sky for hours on end. When the evenings would start to cool, it became a tradition for the two of them to steal away from the estate with a bottle of Est Est or Fiorano and stay out until the stars and moon came out to join them.

He makes no effort to smother his footsteps. Jaskier sits unmoving. He isn’t sure if the man is even awake. But when he’s close enough, he spots Jaskier’s unblinking eyes looking out on the rows of grapevines and the pointed towers of Castel Ravello in the distance. He has one of their throw blankets around him, caught in the front as the early morning air is still crisp and biting.

“You know,” Geralt mumbles, “it really is terrible to wake up in a bed, cold and alone.”

Geralt’s ears twitch at the sound of a huffed laugh. “Then you know how I feel every morning when you’re down in the fields helping Peter, and I’m by myself in our bed.” Jaskier looks over his shoulder, a glint in his eye. His words hold no coolness to them. If anything, Geralt thinks he can see a faint smile curling the corners of Jaskier’s lips. “You _are_ aware that the point of tenants is to have them do the work for you, right?”

Geralt shrugs. Jaskier shuffles just enough that Geralt can join him on the chair. It’s a slight mess of limbs at first, but eventually they find their usual position; both of them splayed out on the chaise lounge, Jaskier sitting back against Geralt’s chest, the Witcher’s arms around him and keeping him close.

Geralt tosses the blanket over both of them. “I get restless,” he says simply, tucking most of the throw around Jaskier. He tries not to smile too much at the bard snuggling back against him, trying to warm back up.

“Yes, you do.” Jaskier rests his head against Geralt’s shoulder. “No matter how much I try to tire you out.”

“Hmm.” Geralt trails his fingers over Jaskier’s forearm. He feels the faint bumps of gooseflesh scattered over the man’s flesh. He sets his chin against Jaskier’s crown. “What are you doing out here?”

Jaskier is quiet for a moment, looking out on to the valley. “I needed to think,” he says quietly.

Geralt looks down at him. A light laugh bubbles out of Jaskier. “Don’t look so afraid,” he pets Geralt’s hand, “you didn’t do anything. I’ve just...I’ve been having dreams lately.”

“What sorts of dreams?”

“Odd ones.” Jaskier sighs, fidgeting with Geralt’s fingers until he can interlace them. “They’re like memories, but...they aren’t mine. I’m never me in my dreams.”

Geralt lets the words sit with him for a moment. Odd dreams have made friends of him over the years. And he suspects the same of Jaskier. There were times he woke in the middle of the night to a bard with a scrunched up, pained expression on his face, or a chest heaving in quick sharp breaths. Dreams like that can follow anyone; but someone with their blood laced with magic, the dreams can be something else.

“I spoke to Barnabas-Basil about this place when we moved in,” Jaskier continues, his voice low. “He told me its history. He told me about who the land used to belong to.”

And he knows Jaskier isn’t talking about Bolius or Baron Rossell or any other tired old soul that sought the stretch of land out for a respite from the world outside. “They’re talking to you?” Geralt asks, torn on whether to watch Jaskier’s face or to follow the man’s gaze out on to the valley.

Jaskier shrugs. “I guess. I mean, this place used to belong to my kind. Their ghosts might appreciate someone like them being around again. Even if it’s only a halfbreed.”

Geralt buries his nose into Jaskier’s hair. Something always smelt off about the man. Underneath the oils and perfumes he scrubbed into his skin every night, there was this faint undertone of something else – something that smelt like forest rains and earth.

It drove him mad. Jaskier wasn’t human. Not entirely. But Geralt could never put his finger on it. He looked as human as the rest of them. And, in hindsight, he probably should have known about masking scents and glamours. The first time Jaskier let it all slide away in front of Geralt, he looked at the Witcher as if he would grab his silver sword and strike him down.

And that hurt more than anything else.

He didn’t look that different to how he usually did. Maybe his eyes were a bit bluer and there was this aura around him that was lilting. But Geralt’s eyes went to the ears. Behind the glamour, he expected to see an arch. And his tongue sat heavy in his mouth when he didn’t see much difference to that either. A glamour used so often throughout Jaskier’s entire life that the arch of his ear is nothing more now than a slight peak. Something people often miss unless they really looked. And humans rarely ever did.

Geralt sighs, pressing a kiss to Jaskier’s temple. People have called him worse things; things that have stuck with him like ghosts. And it took a long time for those ghosts to be left behind. Geralt won’t let them past the threshold of their home, haunting their walls. But he knows that ghosts don’t obey the laws of man and Witcher at the best of times.

Jaskier turns his head, looking at Geralt through eyelashes. “I’m sorry,” he laughs. “This probably isn’t what you want to hear at this hour.”

A soft frown etches into Geralt’s brow. “If something is bothering you, then I want to hear about it,” he says simply, rubbing his nose against Jaskier’s. The bard leans forward, following the Witcher for a kiss. Geralt sets their foreheads together instead. “How long have you had these dreams?”

Jaskier sighs. His eyelids slip closed. “A few weeks after settling here,” he says. When Geralt opens his mouth to reply, he pushes forward. “But they weren’t anything bad. They still aren’t. They’re just...odd.”

Geralt sets his jaw. “You’ve been dealing with this all this time,” he sighs, bringing his fingers up to Jaskier’s face. A light stubble has started to grow along the bard’s cheeks and jaw. He always grows out a slight beard whenever he’s home. If the Academy or business with Rosemary and Thyme come calling, the beard disappears and Jaskier goes back to looking like he did when out on the roads with Geralt. But no letters or summons have arrived to their door in months, and with the summer already half over, the Academy has lost its chance to get back one of its professors for the new year.

Not that Jaskier seems to mind at all. He’s spent his days pouring over the renovation plans for the estate’s buildings and the management of the people living within its walls.

And without the Academy summons, Geralt has Jaskier for the winter: a rare occurrence.

Jaskier tilts his head, still trying to lure Geralt back closer. “I’m fine,” he assures. He leans into the touch on his face. “You needn’t worry about me.”

They watch the sun struggle to peer over the valley’s peaks. Though, once sunlight spills over the fields, Geralt looks down at the body slumped against him. Jaskier lets out a soft huff, burying his face into Geralt’s neck. The Witcher chuckles. “Come on,” he pats Jaskier’s side. “You’ll sleep better in a bed.”

If the tenants see him carrying Jaskier back towards their house in his arms, the bard’s head tucked comfortably against his shoulder and a blanket wrapped snugly around him, it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. Though his face does warm slightly at Barnabas-Basil arching an eyebrow over his dark glasses; but the majordomo is soon swept away by something or other down by the gardens.

It’s a struggle to untangle Jaskier’s arms from his neck as soon as he sets the bard down on their bed. An almost distressed whine wrangles out of Jaskier’s throat as Geralt frees himself. “I’m just going across the hall to Marlene,” Geralt assures him, pressing a light kiss to Jaskier’s temple. “I’ll be back in a second.”

Jaskier mutters something into his pillow; the words all but lost as he coils into himself, bringing blankets and pillows in with him.

He tells Marlene that they’ll probably miss breakfast. “You can have your share. If anyone down in the estate wants some of it too, they can have it,” he says, glancing across the hall to his room. It’s all quiet.

Marlene nods. “Thank you, Master Geralt. I’ll have it sent down to the lads and their families.”

When he steps back into the room, he finds Jaskier curled up in a larger nest than when he left. The man spreads out across his own half of the bed, an arm thrown over to Geralt’s side, fingers skimming the edge of the Witcher’s pillow.

Geralt pads over to his side, toeing off his boots as he perches on the edge of the bed.

He hears slight shuffling behind him. “Thought you were goin’ to the fields?” Jaskier mumbles, pillowing his head on his arm.

Geralt looks over his shoulder. “What was it you said earlier? That the purpose of having tenants was that the work would be done for me?”

A slow smile spreads over Jaskier’s lips as Geralt slides back underneath the sheets, settling down to face the bard. “And you said you were restless,” Jaskier hums, lifting his chin for a kiss.

“No matter how hard you tried to tire me out,” Geralt grins, catching Jaskier’s lips in his.

If he only had this, a warm and pliant Jaskier with him, he could let the gods take him from this world content and happy. Everything else he has just felt like some deity’s way of making up for all of the shit they trudged through throughout their lives.

Geralt pulls him against his chest, a hand at his cheek to keep the kiss going until Jaskier breaks it for air. He tugs at the Witcher, moving him until he’s settled over Jaskier with the bard’s legs parted around his waist. Jaskier skims his fingers along the ridge of Geralt’s jaw. “I love you,” Jaskier rasps, leaning to kiss Geralt again.

Moans and grunts are lost between them, buried into necks or shoulders or mouths. The house is small, and thick walls aside, neither of them really want any roaming staff scarred for life because they couldn’t keep it to themselves.

Hips grind together and hands start slipping underneath shirts and palming skin. At a particular angle, Jaskier moans into their kiss. He breaks away, setting his head back against his pillow. “Oh gods above,” he groans again when Geralt chases it, setting his lips to the column of Jaskier’s throat.

Years have been spent mapping out each other’s bodies. Both of them know how to earn the right noises out of the other; where to go and set teeth or lips or nail, just to earn that gasp or moan or curse. Jaskier’s legs fall to the side, letting Geralt closer. “Do you have any plans of actually taking off your clothes and getting in me, or are we just going to go at it like stableboys?” the bard’s mouth hangs open when Geralt nips the skin of his neck.

Geralt huffs a short laugh. “You’re entwined in more blankets than clothes,” he rumbles. “If you can manage to find a way out, then I suppose we could do something.”

And Jaskier sets about it. He has the throw he took outside to watch the sunrise, plus the linen and cotton sheets of their bed splayed around him like a nest. They’re all kicked down to the end of their bed, alongside breeches and shirts and anything else that could get in their way. As soon as Geralt is free of his last piece of clothing, Jaskier grabs his hand and tugs him back down.

Oil is hastily grabbed from their bedside cabinet and Geralt slicks up his fingers.

One slips into Jaskier without any resistance. A light sigh leaves the bard. “Go on,” he breathes, “keep going. More.”

Geralt can do nothing but obey every word that pours out from those lips. Magic won’t work on him in the slightest; but it’s not a normal sort of magic that Jaskier holds over him. Geralt hangs off of everything he says. He’s both a nymph and a siren and some voice in the woods that lures passing people off of their roads.

He gets Jaskier ready as quickly as he can, but being sure to wring as much pleasure out of the bard’s body as he can. It’s not difficult to do. In the years he’s spent bedding each other, Geralt has learned where to set his lips and when to nip with teeth. He presses a wet kiss into the juncture of Jaskier’s neck and shoulder.

He tries not to groan at how tightly Jaskier clenches around his fingers. “Get in me, you brute,” he hisses. Nails dig into his shoulders.

When they join together, Geralt buries his grunt into Jaskier’s neck. The first few thrusts are nothing but slow rocks of hips, neither of them parting from being plastered together. Jaskier’s arms are strung over his shoulders, holding him tightly against his chest.

Eventually, he feels fingers curl through and tighten in his hair. A silent order to _move_.

The noise of skin slapping on skin fills the room. Grunts and moans and rasped whispers of their names follow. Geralt plants his hands down on either side of Jaskier’s head, and lets his hips snap into the other’s.

Jaskier barely manages to cut a moan off by slapping a hand over his mouth. He’s just chasing release now. It’s been building up steadily since first being pulled over. And from how much Jaskier is leaking between them, and how glassed over eyes blearily look back at him, he can tell that he’s not far behind either.

Jaskier sets a hand against Geralt’s abdomen, feeling muscles flex and tense underneath his palm. “Are you close already?” he breaths, head cocking to the side. A small, playful smile starts to ghost his lips.

“You always do this to me,” Geralt grunts. He catches one of Jaskier’s legs, hoisting it up higher around his hips so he can get deeper into the body below him.

Jaskier doesn’t manage to mask that moan. It shatters through the room and there’s a vague worry in Geralt’s mind that it might have slipped beneath the cracks of the door, but he can’t find himself caring. Fire has been set and kindled in his core.

Jaskier hums. “We used to spend hours fucking, remember?” Jaskier stares up at the ceiling, as if a memory played out on the rafters. His smile only widens. “Gods, do you remember Redania? I thought the innkeep was going to kick us out with how loud you were being. Neither of us got much sleep that night.”

Geralt grunts. “What you can do with those hips of yours is just sinful, my little lark.”

It’s always good. It’s always _so_ good. Fluttering tight walls gripping him in just the right way, the way that drives him insane and has sweat breaking out over his skin and breath stealing from his chest. He needs to come. It’s been stalking around him since getting inside Jaskier’s body, but now it’s about to drag him under.

He hovers over Jaskier, folding the bard almost in two just to get at that spot inside the other, to make sure they finish together. Jaskier wails, quickly reaching out for a pillow and burying most of the noise into it.

When he comes, Jaskier’s walls tighten as he floods the body below him, grinding their hips together to wring out any last wave of pleasure. He only stops when Jaskier’s moans turn into bitten off whines.

He’s enough energy left in his bones to fall off to his side of the bed, rather than squash Jaskier beneath him. “I put you here to go to sleep,” Geralt mumbles.

An airy laugh rattles through the bard. “And now I will,” Jaskier says into Geralt’s shoulder once he’s curled into and settled by his side. He pats the Witcher’s chest absentmindedly. “With my husband right beside me.”

Whatever he was going to say catches in his throat. No golden band sits on their fingers; but why should it? They know what they are to each other. Everyone else knows about the Witcher and his bard living on the Corvo Bianco estate in Toussaint. Even when Jaskier leaves for the Academy or the Rosemary and Thyme, people ask about his _husband_.

Nothing comes out of him for a time. So he hugs Jaskier to him and presses a kiss to his sweat-beaded brow.

**Author's Note:**

> *Originally had this as a fluffy G-rated piece*  
> *Wild Sex Scene Appears*  
> *Sighing, Changes rating to E*
> 
> There may be a second part to this with Guests just visiting. Because I will begrudgingly write smut even though I don't know how, but I will ALWAYS include fluff. 
> 
> tumblrs;  
> yourqueenforayear (terrible humour and general devilment) || agoodgoddamnshot (writings)
> 
> Kudos & Comments always gladly appreciated x 
> 
> Hope all are safe and well x


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